


five times I lay dreaming (and still the morning came)

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s01e22 Beginning of the End, Episode: s03e18 The Singularity, Episode: s05e22 The End, F/M, Heavy Angst, Post-Episode: s02e21-22 S.O.S. Parts 1-2, Post-Episode: s05e05 Rewind, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 00:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14801081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Five times Leopold Fitz fell into dreams, in darkness, in sorrow, in life, in death.And one time he awoke.***FitzSimmons, with a healthy dose of angst (and a little stolen happiness).





	five times I lay dreaming (and still the morning came)

Terror.  It threatens to overwhelm him.  It’s unstoppable, pounding in his veins, screaming in his ears, making him shake so hard he can barely get the words out.  

He’s so incredibly scared, but he  _ won’t  _ be a coward in this, he won’t take the easy way.  It has to be him. So he tells her how he feels, and she gives him the answer he knew she would, and that’s all right, really, it’s all right, it’s all right --

His shaking hands close into fists at his side.  Jemma doesn’t notice. She’s terrified, too, but there’s one thing he knows that she doesn’t.

She’s going to make it.

He looks at her, fixes her face in his mind.  She’s beautiful, even here, even at the end. He swallows. Steels himself.  He’s ready.

Fitz’s fist smashes the release, and the ocean rushes in.

 

* * *

 

He’d never known how  _ hungry _ you could be for a thing that wasn’t food.  Never knew you could take the concept of hunger, turn it over, flip it inside out, until it was a ravening roar in his lungs and his head, until he gulped cold salt water in a desperate reflex, his pale hands flailing, clawing at the rushing water in the dark, and all he knew was an insatiable --

What was the word again?

He mutters to himself, the memory fading.  It’s hard to pay attention now. He fumbles with his tools irritably, his hands weak and spasming, and metal clatters on the desk.  He wonders, not for the first time, if this is a dream.

He reaches out for her hand on his shoulder, and she’s a warm and gentle comfort, even though something about her hand in his makes him… uncertain.

Has he been here before?  Hard to remember sometimes, with these blank patches in his head, things he doesn’t know he doesn’t know.  Blind spots, Jemma calls them.

They’re bloody maddening.  He wishes, not for the first time, that he had her patience.

He drifts again, the world around him gauzy, insubstantial.  Like a dream. That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? The thought feels familiar, but he can’t say why.  He struggles to come up with the missing words, with the -- with the -- dammit, there’s just the  _ blanks, _ the  _ empty,  _ the he doesn’t know what they are --

She leaves.  He stays.

And for a long while, her absence is a thing he doesn’t know he doesn’t know.


End file.
